COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin, Chairman

INSTANCES OF PERSONAL OBJECTIONS TO CONFIRMATION IRMATION OF EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS

The following excerpts and statements were presented by the Chairman (Mr. Wiley) for the use of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in considering Executive nominations.

I. THE BURGUIERES CASE

Ernest A. Burguieres, commissioner of immigration at the port of New Orleans, La. Recommitted and not again reported. 1932. (See Congressional Record, 72d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 75, pp. 13485– 13487)

Senator KING moved to recommit nomination of Mr. Burguieres to Committee on Immigration.

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that

Senator REED. * * * The only thing against him was the personally obnoxious objection made by the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. LONG). The committee took the position then if this were an office to be exercised wholly within the State of Louisiana the objection of the Senator would be conclusive, and we would report adversely on the nomination; but the committee took the position that as this is not such an office, as its functions extend over many States, and affect many States, no Senator from any one of those States ought to be allowed to interpose that objection successfully, just exactly as we have said several times before with regard to nominees for Federal commissions or nominees for courts whose jurisdiction extended over several States.

That was why the committee did not regard the Senator's objection as conclusive when he said that this nominee was personally obnoxious to him; and as all the testimony, according to the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. HATFIELD), was in favor of the nominee, the committee voted to report the nomination favorably to the Senate.

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Senator LONG. Mr. President, I just want to advise the Senator * that I presented some telegrams from the various interests opposing this man, particularly the laboring people, at the time I appeared there. I was seeking to convey the information that it was not solely my objection at the time. Senator KING. * * * There was an understanding that the matter was shelved, and Senator LONG was advised that no further action would be taken. * * *

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Senator NORRIS. It seems to me, without expressing any opinion about the merits, because I have none * * it seems to me in

real good faith we ought to send this nomination to the committee. Senator REED. If the Senator from Louisiana expects to produce evidence tending to show that the nominee is unfit, of course, he ought to be given a chance to produce it, but if he merely wants this matter

to go back to the committee so that he can claim the nominee is personally obnoxious to him, and rest on that, I am going to oppose sending it back to the committee.

Mr. BINGHAM. Mr. President, in order that my position might not be misunderstood, I am one of the old-fashioned Senators who believe in State rights and in the right of a State to be represented by the Senators who sit here. I believe that when a Senator from a sovereign State stands up on the floor of the Senate and states that a nominee is not fit to hold a certain office, is personally obnoxious to him, that it is my duty, believing as I do, to vote with him, no matter how many of my friends may feel differently about the matter

Mr. BROUSSARD rose.

Mr. BINGHAM. Even though the other Senator from the same State who is a personal friend of mine believes differently. The States are represented by two Senators, and if one of those two representatives makes such a statement as was made on this floor by the junior Senator from Louisiana, no matter how much I may disagree with him on every position he takes and I think it fair to state that probably there are no two Senators on this floor who are more divergent in their views on public questions than the junior Senator from Louisiana and I-nevertheless, when he takes the position he has taken regarding this matter it seems to me that the only fair thing to do is to send the nomination back to the committee for further consideration.

I yield to my friend from Louisiana.

Mr. BROUSSARD. Did the Senator from Connecticut hear the junior Senator from Louisiana today express that objection?

Mr. BINGHAM. On the floor this evening, in response to a question of mine, he suggested that the nominee is personally obnoxious to him, and it has been my practice during the seven and a half years I have been here always to vote in accordance with any such preference expressed by a Senator, no matter on which side of the aisle he might be.

Mr. BROUSSARD. My understanding of the statement made two or three times by my colleague was that the nominee was obnoxious to the labor people.

Mr. BINGHAM. I asked the junior Senator, the Senator's colleague, whether the nominee is personally obnoxious to him, and he stated that he is. Then I suggested that I should vote with him, although he knows as well as any Senator on this floor that he and I rarely vote on any question on the same side of the issue.

II. THE YOKE CASE

F. Roy Yoke, collector of internal revenue for West Virginia. 1938 Confirmed 46-15. Senator HOLT, of that State, opposed confirma tion. (See Congressional Record, 75th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 83 pp. 319-326)

Senator HOLT. I wish to say that Mr. F. Roy Yoke is personally obnoxious to me as a Senator from the State of West Virginia.

* * * Mr. Yoke was superintendent of schools where I attended in Weston, W. Va. While superintendent of schools he took great

delight in attacking every individual in the Holt family.

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Mr. Yoke, before a student assembly in which the Senator was a student present, made the statement that "Old Doc Holt ought to be lined up against a white wall and shot until his blood stained the wall!" May I say that "Doc Holt" is my father.

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[Apparently the statement grew out of the father's opposition to World War I.}

Senator BAILEY. We have the testimony of the junior Senator from West Virginia, which is unquestioned; we have the corroboration in the extract of the letter, and there is no contradiction of that, and we have three separate statements from Mr. Yoke himself, in none of which he denies that he made the statement. Taking the three together, we are bound to reach the conclusion that he did say it; at least he himself said that Mr. HOLT's father should have been shot.

The question arises at once, Is that sufficient ground for the rejection of the nomination? I come to that on the testimony of the senior Senator from West Virginia, with which I thoroughly agree. As I recall his statement, he said just now that any son of a father would resent a statement such as this attributed to Mr. Yoke concerning his father so long as he had a scintilla of self-respect. I fully agree. Mr. President, that is all there is here for me to pass on. Was the statement made? The witness accused admits it. Does the statement justify the objection of personal obnoxiousness? If it does not, then let us throw the rule as to personal obnoxiousness out of the window, and never let it come back here again.

So far as I am concerned, that is the whole case.

I do not care to become involved in the difficulties between any Senators. I do think that if we are to sustain the unwritten law of the. Senate known as the personal obnoxiousness rule we have to apply it equally here amongst Senators.

III. THE MOORE CASE

Daniel D. Moore, collector of internal revenue for district of Louisiana. Reported favorably, confirmed, and reconsidered by unanimous consent. Recommitted, again reported favorably, but never confirmed.

Senator HUEY LONG stated to the Senate that the nomination was personally offensive to him.

The above proceedings took place from January 4, 1934, to April 26, 1934. Part of this was in executive session (Congressional Record 78:5234).

Mr. LONG. Mr. President, the matter that is under discussion is the confirmation of Mr. Daniel D. Moore to be collector of internal revenue for the district of Louisiana.

I present the opposition which I make to this nomination personally. I first state to the Senate that this nomination is offensive to me personally. Heretofore that has been regarded as sufficient in the Senate. In days past, unless it could be shown that a Senator was estopped from urging that objection, under the rules that have prevailed here I presume that would be sufficient. However, in deference to what I have been requested to do by Members of this body, I will present further data relating to this nomination.

I have never held the duty to be imposed upon any Member of the Senate to justify his reasons for stating that a nomination was personally obnoxious to him. I have held, as has been the majority of the thought in this body, that no Member of the Senate was called upon to justify his statement that a nominee was personally objectionable to him, but that when a State sent its ambassadors to the Senate, under the great doctrine of States' rights which my part of this country has held and upheld from the time the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, no Senator would have to present anything except his own objection and his own proposal that a nomination should not be confirmed by the Senate.

I am not one who is going to take the lead in destroying the prerogatives of the United States Senate. I am not one who is going to take part in destroying the prerogatives that existed here under Hoover and under Wilson and under every other President as far back as we know about. I urged personal objections to a nominee under Mr. Hoover, and the Republican Members of the Senate-who at that time were in the majority-voted to recommit the nomination. I urged personal objections to the appointment of Marcel Garsaud here as a Member of the Power Commission. I not only urged my personal objections, but I brought further evidence before the committee to show that Mr. Garsaud ought not to have been nominated and confirmed as a member of the Power Commission, and the committee refused to report out the nomination of Marcel Garsaud.

We took the same position when a nomination came in here for United States attorney for the district of North Carolina, and the objection then made was upheld here in the Senate. Uniformly has that objection been upheld, except in a case where it was shown by the letters of a Senator, by the fixed evidence of his own handwriting, that he had taken an entirely different view of the proposition of a man being personally objectionable, as in the case of Senator Ransdell in the Cohen case, where letters produced showed that he was sharing the patronage with Cohen, and as in the case of Mr. Luke Lea, who was contesting the nomination of a postmaster appointed for the city of Memphis, where he had written letters to this man saying that he would be glad to have him appointed to that position. In cases of that kind only has the Senate ever refused to sustain the personal objection of the Senator made on this floor.

Mr. WHEELER. As I gather the argument of the Senator from Louisiana, his position is not that in occupying the office he has occupied Mr. Moore was unfriendly to labor; but, in effect, that while he was holding a position of trust with the union he got them to sign a certain contract, and afterward he took advantage of his position of trust to betray the union.

I do not care whether he did it in a union or whether he did it in any other organization; a man who would do that, whether it was to a union, whether it was to a fraternal organization, or to any other organization, in my judgment, would not be fit to hold the position for which Mr. Moore has been nominated.

Permit me to interrupt the Senator further by saying that it seems to me we are presented with a very peculiar situation. Not only do we have one Senator from the State objecting to the confirmation, but both Senators from the State are objecting to the appointment and confirmation of the nominee to the position of collector.